For This Alliance May So Happy Prove
by Hahukum Konn
Summary: The Blackout left Earth without any sign of a technological civilization, and humanity is still recovering from that cataclysm. Unfortunately for a ship of travel-weary Atrians, a world of promise turns out to be anything but. Can they live alongside humans and survive in a world without electricity?
1. Chapter 1

**For This Alliance May So Happy Prove  
**Chapter 1**  
**

Disclaimer: This work of fan-fiction is not intended for personal profit. All characters utilized herein which are not creations of myself belong to The CW or to NBC.

* * *

TWO YEARS AFTER THE BLACKOUT

The tall, bluff _Iksen_ stood on the bridge of the Atrian ship that represented the last and final hope of a civilization fleeing a dying planet. It was night shift, and the lights had been dimmed in deference to a daily cycle of a planet they no longer lived upon. He'd left Maia and his children to sleep in their pod; it was one of the rougher nights for him this time and he didn't want to disturb their sleep.

The ruling _Iksen_ of the Zwahan tribe knew his word was law aboard the ship: the only counterweight to his orders would be the _Hwatab_, the once-mighty legislative body shrunken down to just four Elders – one from each tribe, and whose collective voice could override his own. But they never had, not since the day he and those Atrians and their families who had drawn lots to join him and his family boarded the large ship.

But nonetheless, he felt his people's gazes. He felt their despair and betrayal as he would order a planetary system vacated for lack of a suitable planet, or to avoid a technological civilization. He knew the resentment was building, little by little, every day his word, and his word alone, extended their stay aboard the ship – a ship which, for all its size, could sometimes feel so cramped and tiny. A ship from which there could be no escape but one: death from natural causes, or from deliberately exiting via the airlock.

And sometimes it got to be too much, and Nox would wearily rise out of bed and go to the bridge; he would stand at the railing which divided the dais from the seated crew performing their assigned tasks and look at the stars, wondering if ever he would lead the Atrian remnant to their new home, or if they would all be on the ship so long that the dreary task of finding a suitable world would fall to his son.

Unfortunately, that night shift proved to be anything but a calming experience. Kas had chosen that moment to start in on him with the same argument that Nox had heard so many times before. At a pause in the by now well-worn spiel, he looked around the bridge. He cast a keen eye over the crew members, watching for signs of fatigue, especially among the two frontmost pilots, whose relative isolation while on-shift made them especially susceptible to weariness. It was easy after this long to get bored of a routine; enter a stellar system, catalog the planets, find nothing suitable, move on into deep space to another star, and then have to do the whole thing all over again.

He took a deep, fortifying breath, the moment's break allowing him to rally himself as he once more retreaded an argument over the ship's resources with his brother-in-law. He regarded the other man, and repeated with only a trace of weariness in his voice, "The _Hwatab_ concurs with me that we must _not_ affect other civilizations by the presence of our own. You _have_ to understand this, Kas."

The other man shook his head sharply, the tattoos on his face lending him a harsher appearance in the dim light. "We _can't_ go on; we just can't! Our fuel reserves are down to twenty percent. Food, forty percent. Miscellaneous supplies, thirty percent. Petty theft is rampant. People are tired of living in cubes and calling them pods, my dear Iksen."

Nox chose not to reprimand his brother over the sarcastic use of his title as leader of the Atrian people.

An uncertain voice caught both men's attention. "_Iksen_?"

"Yes?" He turned to the science officer, who somewhat gingerly handed him a datapad then retreated to his station, clearly not wanting to get in the middle of a fight between the two men. Nox looked at the pad and saw the data; his eyes ran quickly over the favorable initial surveys on the inner rocky planets, and his hearts soared. He clenched his fist in triumph as he saw that they all fit within the acceptable parameters for mass and surface gravity.

"Yes! You see?! Three possible livable planets we can choose from! If – and only if – they are viable and uninhabited, we can land!" He thrust the pad at Kas, who grudgingly began reading it over. Nox spoke up so his voice carried throughout the entire bridge. "If the worlds are not suitable, we _must_ go on."

He paused, then ordered to the bridge at large, "Begin a comprehensive survey of the three potentially habitable inner planets of this stellar system. Coordinate with the science officer."

The bridge erupted into a flurry of action and Kas, a sour look on his face, gracelessly turned and left the dais, only pausing to hand the datapad back to the science officer before leaving the bridge.

The _Iksen_'s hand pounded a soft beat on the railing in front of him. He looked out the broad bridge windows and looked at the pale yellow star, bright against the inky black sky dotted with stars.

Maybe _this_ time. Just maybe!

/\/\/\/\

The ship, still somewhat out of the plane of the ecliptic for easier maneuvering, had long since crossed the asteroid belt of the star system and the shifts on the bridge had been busy with navigating to each planet, first the second planet, the fourth, and finally, the third.

The first two had been disappointing.

"The second planet has extensive cloud cover, but detailed spectroscopic analysis shows that the surface temperature and air pressure would be far too high for us, and there is essentially no water on the planet," the science officer had said, deactivating the holographic image hovering over the entire bridge as he did so.

Later on, his verdict on the fourth planet had been equally bleak.

"The fourth planet, while its gravity is weaker compared to the second as it is smaller and has less mass, would still be habitable except that its temperatures range from barely livable during the day to far below the freezing point of water at night. It has almost no atmosphere nor water in easily available liquid form. We would need to essentially use this ship as a permanent habitat if we were to attempt to settle that planet."

Nox had grimaced at hearing that last. Kas would constantly be at him over the dashed hopes of the Atrians now on board, if they had to live every day with the cruel irony of being on a planet and yet being unable to leave their ship to bask in the sun.

But the third planet…

"It has a breathable atmosphere and a surface gravity comparable to the second planet. Its temperatures are remarkably even over the day/night cycle owing to the thick atmosphere, and the planet has a continuous large body of water and sizable land masses."

The excitement palpably rose on the bridge as Nox said, "Display the hologram."

The beautiful soothing blue color of the planet drew gasps from some of the bridge officers, and Nox had to admit that if they chose the right landing spot, the planet could prove to match Atria at the height of their civilization, before planetary decline overcame them.

"Is the third planet inhabited? Does it show any sign of an advanced civilization?" The _Iksen_ could feel the excitement rise even higher as the science officer's words could mean the end of their long expedition.

The science officer coughed and shuffled a bit before clearing his throat and reading off the datapad: "There is no night lighting; there are no coherent radio-wave emissions from the planet – only black-body radiation consistent with non-sentient life-forms. There are remnants of artificial satellites, but they do not appear to function. There are what appear to be ruins of large cities scattered about the globe, but I cannot identify any sites of continuous habitation."

"Your opinion?"

"There may have been a civilization on this planet once, but it has since gone extinct. We can locate a suitable landing point for you shortly, should you desire it."

"Do it!" Nox commanded amid the cheers and applause that shook the bridge, and which soon reverberated from prow to stern as the news was eagerly passed from one Atrian to the next.

And so the ship began to veer towards the third planet, the one they would learn was called Earth – a planet filled not with promise but with danger!

/\/\/\/\

Ray Whitehill stepped inside his house and sighed in relief as he shucked off his body armor, stored it in his closet, then stored his rifle in the metal cabinet specifically for keeping his gun safe. Patrol duty during the day was the safest, comparatively speaking, in Edendale, Louisiana, a small suburb tucked away in a forested area near Baton Rouge.

The Blackout had changed _everything_. One minute, he was tucking Emery into bed, and the next, the power had gone out all over Edendale.

The first sign that something was seriously, fundamentally _wrong_ was when he'd grabbed his cell phone out of his pocket, and it hadn't worked. The mounting dread in his stomach had risen as he tried a flashlight, then tried starting his car.

_Nothing electrical had ever worked again_.

When he thought about it, he'd been damned lucky. Some of the folks in the early days of the Blackout (as everybody seemed to call it) had been unfortunate enough to end up on the wrong end of a revolver held by someone figuring on taking what they could and running.

The fact that he was standing in a still-intact house – the same one he owned before the Blackout – in a still-intact town that had pulled through was probably down to Edendale being on a little-used State highway. People who wanted to take a day trip from Baton Rouge usually took off for New Orleans, or went on cruises on the Mississippi, or did any number of other things rather than check out a rather uninteresting distant suburb with all of two high schools.

That, more than anything else, thought Ray, was what had given the town police and the ex-military guys enough time to get together with the mayor and get authorization to barricade the major roadways in and out, as well as organize neighborhood patrols. Ray's main job these days was to either patrol his local area (always on the buddy system with a neighbor), or stand watch at the semipermanent blockades now keeping the criminal elements from Baton Rouge, New Orleand, or less often Shreveport, from overwhelming their town. Sad to say, but you couldn't always tell a legit refugee from a con artist or a burglar.

That said, the stories the legitimate refugees _did_ tell were harrowing all on their own. Total breakdown of civil order – panic – rioting – throngs of people escaping the cities for who-only-knew where they could go. And without electricity, the National Guard and police couldn't do much. Even the military was going to be seriously hampered if you couldn't start up a tank.

Nobody, thought Ray, would say the last two years had been a picnic in Edendale, for all that they had come through relatively unscathed. People in Edendale had died, either from violence or from disease. Starvation wasn't a problem if you counted a monotonous diet of vegetables and fruits from the farms, the rationing of which the town's leaders had managed to hammer out a compromise to provide the basics for everyone. Anything extra had to be traded for, in some way. Barter had come back with a vengeance, as had interest in backyard agriculture.

A couple of ranchers with horses and another wealthy man with a stud farm had gotten together and helped teach people how to use horses, because it looked like breeding them was going to be a big-time thing now.

Along with that, an enterprising auto mechanic had started quite a land-office business converting useless cars into half-way passable horse-drawn carriages. The city patrol people had even managed to get a couple of pickup trucks converted, having most of the front-end basically taken off and a crude hitch welded to the front axle so two horses could draw one ersatz pickup truck-slash-wagon.

But that night, what was on Ray's mind was the smell of soup wafting in from the kitchen. He ambled over to the kitchen and saw his wife, Michelle, bringing in a hot pot of carrot and potato soup. Sweeping up a towel as he went, he used it to protect his hands as he helped her get it onto the now-useless electric stove, then began setting out bowls and spoons as their daughter, Emery, came downstairs from her room.

"Go sit down at the table, sweetie. I've got a hot pot here to deal with. Ray, help me ladle the soup out," instructed Michelle.

Before long, the Whitehills sat at the dinner table, looking at each other over the candlelight in the room before eating their supper, not knowing their lives were about to change forever.

/\/\/\/\

The ship's slow descent from orbit had been almost textbook-perfect, according to the navigation officer; just the right rate of descent to keep the ship in the planet's gravity well but prevent the heat from atmospheric entry from damaging the ship.

It had been almost hypnotizing, watching the planet swell up under them as they lazily spiraled down, having chosen a location within the subtropical zone of the planet below them.

The first sign that something was wrong was when the ship entered the troposphere of the third planet and began shaking erratically.

Nox bellowed, "What's going on?!" as he grabbed the rail at the dais.

"Electrical power is fluctuating throughout the ship! Attempting to compensate!" The operations officer hit a few buttons, then swore. "Unable to correct for power fluctuations! The engines will have to shut down to avoid wrecking the ship!"

The science officer, who had been monitoring his readouts, gasped in shock. "_Iksen_! The electrical power's being _suppressed_ somehow! I can detect self-replicating nanites in the lower atmosphere which consume electrical power!"

Nox swore loudly. "Can we leave orbit before the engines shut down?!"

The science officer's helpless look joined the operations officer's before they both frantically returned to their consoles, trying to overcome the protesting ship's power fluctuations.

The _Iksen_ himself gripped the rail more firmly as he looked out the window, staring down at the world that had been so full of promise. Could this be the end of the Atrian race? Death on a planet that surely must have killed off another civilization, too?

/\/\/\/\

The first sign that the Whitehills (and everybody else in Edendale) were going to have a very unusual night was when they heard a loud rumbling sound as though an airplane were flying overhead.

Ray dropped his spoon in his bowl and jumped out of his seat. He rushed to grab his body armor and gun, then barrelled out the front door into the street. He saw, in the evening twilight, a large black object sailing overhead, the tip glowing faint red as it sank lower and lower, looming over them in the sky. He looked around and saw his neighbors had also rushed out of their houses to see the ship. He bellowed to them, "Get the horses and get on the wagon! We need to find out what that thing is!"

Jerry, who lived down the road a bit, owned a house with a large enough lawn, and which butted up against the neighborhood park, to not only keep a couple of standby horses in a fairly decent-sized corral, but also keep one of the converted pickup trucks in his driveway. Ray helped him get the horses harnessed to the truck. After that, Jerry bellowed, "Get the reins! I gotta get my shotgun and a Coleman lamp!"

Ray dropped his gun on the bench seat, then jumped up to the driver's side (although there wasn't a steering wheel any longer) and seized the reins, firmly keeping the excited horses from galloping off. Jerry raced back a moment later, his armor firmly on as he sat on the right. "Let's go!"

Jerry was already fiddling with a match and carefully lighting the lamp; as it came to life, he pulled the sun-visor out of the clip and swivelled it to his side. He then hooked the lamp's handle onto the clip. A few more men rushed up and climbed onto the bed; Ray only had time to nod quickly at them before the thundering roar of the large ship's impact with the ground reverberated through the ground with teeth-rattling shakes, forcing Jerry to grab the Coleman lamp tightly to keep it from swinging wildly and falling off the clip. The horses whinnied and nearly reared up. Ray bellowed, "Hyah!" and flicked the reins, urging the horses onward to meet the strange ship that had crash-landed near Edendale.

* * *

Author Notes:

Welcome to my crossover fic! A word about names: I've scratched my head and I couldn't do better than shorten Castor's name to what was said to be a syllable of his Sondiv name, and "Nox" is unusual enough even in English I decided to keep it as-is. If y'all out there have any suggestions I'll be more than happy to take them on board and credit you appropriately. :)

I want to thank my very helpful betas and idea-bouncer-offers: For _Revolution_, **IronAmerica**! For _Star-Crossed_, **justvisiting80** and **Sibuna'sDivergent**! I also want to thank my horse expert, **Ayala Atreides** here on ff.n :)


	2. Chapter 2

**For This Alliance May So Happy Prove  
**Chapter 2

Disclaimer: This work of fan-fiction is not intended for personal profit. All characters utilized herein which are not creations of myself belong to The CW or to NBC.

* * *

The hoofbeats of several horses thundered down the side artery of Edendale towards an unsettled area to the east of the town center. It was to have been a grand industrial park, luring businesses there with the promise of cheap land rents yet being within reach of Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Mobile in Alabama. However, the park itself had never materialized after the recession had hit several years before, and to this day the land had been graded flat, but otherwise left for lack of any money to continue the building. And certainly, after the Blackout, nobody was going to roll on in with bulldozers and construction cranes.

But that night, by fortuitous chance it was where the huge object that had sailed so majestically overhead the town had landed.

As they approached the object, which lay flat on the ground, they could see in the fading twilight the long scar it had left on the ground, and where it had plowed through forests and bushes they could see the occasional orange flicker, signaling the odd brush fire. Ray tugged slightly on the reins to slow the horses down. He said, "We're about a third of a mile away now, I figure. Think those fires'll be a problem?"

Jerry leaned over to get a better look and shook his head. "They're too scattered. Damn thing up front probably chewed up so much soil there's nothing to spread 'em."

Ray, for his part, turned and leaned out to catch the eye of one of the men on the truck bed. "Patrol positions, now."

Thumps of feet on the truck accompanied the shuffling Ray could see through the rear window, and he knew that two guys were now resting themselves against the canopy, their guns poised to shoot at anything coming towards them, and two more were keenly watching to their rear and sides. The ship, Ray saw, had stopped almost dead-center in the industrial park, its black hulk lit only dimly by the half-moon just above the horizon.

Ray's eyes had adjusted to the almost total darkness, aside from the Coleman lamp hanging in the truck. He could begin to make out the sleek lines of the vessel that had fallen upon Edendale. He could see what looked like regular square or round holes that must be windows. Something about the thing – vessel – ship – niggled at him. It just didn't seem anything close to what he remembered were within human capabilities before the Blackout.

Ray let that sense of foreboding guide him as he tugged the reins once more. The horses obediently halted, and he handed the reins to Jerry. "We're staying put here for now. Alert the riders."

Jerry nodded, and as Ray hopped out of the truck, Jerry hopped out on the other side and bellowed, "Riders! Over here!"

Ray grabbed his gun from the bench seat and checked the magazine, then checked his body armor. Amid the clop-clop of horses and riders gathering around the truck in a loose circle, Ray looked at the Coleman lamp, then at the truck bed. He said, "I want one of you to stay with the truck back here 'case we need to send word back to town if things go sideways. Got me?"

A tall baseball-cap wearing man with a perpetual five o'clock shadow, who Ray remembered was Scott and who lived several houses down from him, barked, "Yeah. I'll stay."

"Good," he replied. His voice rose as he spoke to the group in general. "All right, first off. I see too many of you. Anyone back in town on patrol at all?"

"Shit, sorry, Ray," muttered someone on the far side of the truck. "But c'mon, we all saw that damn thing."

"Okay, but now's not the time to leave the town undefended, huh? Plus, I don't want anyone gawking around here when we don't know who's in that or what it is. So, you six in the back there" —he pointed—"Go on back and keep the town quiet."

Although nobody had ever replaced the town sheriff after the old one died a year before to dysentery (after that, people in the town routinely boiled their water), Ray had, in some respects, taken on that task, probably because he usually knew what to do in a tight situation. It hadn't hurt to be in the National Guard reserves when the Blackout happened, either.

So, on this occasion, scattered acknowledgements hit Ray's ears as he beckoned to Jerry, hand out to grasp the lamp's handle, and he thanked – well, maybe not God, but _whatever_ was out there bigger than him, that the town's defense corps and lawkeepers deferred to him even as they might be keyed up over the massive craft's landing.

Ray looked around, gripping the Coleman lamp as he held it up to see. "The rest of you, get your horses tied up somewhere close by, and fan out quietly across the flat area with me in the middle. _Nobody_ fires or talks until I give the order. Understood?"

Again, he heard murmurs of acknowledgement and for the next few minutes, the area was busy with people finding trees or still-standing posts to secure their horses. Meanwhile, he said to Jerry, who had joined him, "Got any water?"

Jerry handed him a canteen; Ray took a sip, then returned it.

Shortly, the troops around him shuffled into a roughly straight line, spaced so there was about six feet between each person, and Ray gestured them forward, cautiously stepping over the now-ground-up pavement and soil towards the silent alien ship.

/\/\/\/\

Nox's eyes flew open as he came to with a start. Breathing heavily, he at first struggled against whatever was holding him into a chair, and then collapsed back into it, memories flooding him: the ship failing – the nav officer just managing to pull the nose up before power died completely – bellowing orders to strap in and brace for collision – fear rising within him as the ground of the unfamiliar planet below swelled up under the ship – the shattering impact nearly throwing him out of his chair even with the straps – being struck on the head with something small and heavy – darkness after that.

Now that he thought about it and rubbed his head, it must have been a safety helmet regulations said were supposed to be worn for _exactly_ this kind of situation. Even though he sat on a chair on a deck that seemed tilted slightly to one side, Nox laughed briefly at the absurdity of defending himself before a Board of Inquiry on Atria and having to explain how he, the _Iksen_, sustained injuries from his own safety gear!

He took a deep breath and refocused on the task at hand. He looked around as he carefully unbuckled the straps, noticing that all the panels on the ship were dead. The only light shone through the shattered overhead and front windows, revealing a world whose sun was already about to set.

_Night-time, _thought Nox, _would not be an ideal situation for us._

Yes, Atrians could use their own tattoo-markings as a source of light, but that wasn't foolproof.

_Nothing for it_, he thought. He gingerly rose from his chair, testing his footing on the deck. Aside from a throbbing in his head, he seemed to be physically all right. He called, "Is anyone awake?"

As if that were a signal, other Atrians on the bridge began stirring to life. "If you're injured, call out! Anyone who is able-bodied, we need to get as many people to the Common Hall as possible. And try to get flashlights, if you can find any."

The Common Hall was a large room in the ship reserved for rare occasions, like _dinaskyu, _when the entire Atrian population of the ship would continue the ancient ceremonies and rituals of their homeworld. On this occasion, it would serve as the central impromptu meeting point for as many survivors of the crash as possible. From there, Nox and the _Hwatab_ would decide what to do next.

/\/\/\/\

Ray Whitehill and the bulk of the town's lawkeeping forces had mutually halted about two hundred feet away from the ship. The Coleman lamp, now at Ray's feet, threw out a feeble light that illuminated the ground nearby. A night critter of some kind skittered off into the growing darkness.

Unease grew within him the longer he waited. His throat grew a bit parched, and he shifted his grip on his gun, wishing he'd thought to bring a water bottle or canteen. He murmured to his right, "Jerry, got some more water?"

He could see Jerry reach out, and he took the canteen again. "Thanks!" he loudly whispered as he quickly took a swig, then handed it back. There; now he could think a little more clearly. He tried to hear any faint noises from within the ship that now loomed over him, more menacing than any building Ray had ever been near.

Another voice to his left said, "Maybe nobody's in that damn thing." He readjusted his grip on his gun and shifted on the toes of his feet, then took a step forward.

Ray, forgetting himself, barked, "Stop!" His voice rang out through the still air, and he hissed to the startled man, "Step back, mister!"

The man in question jumped back to his original spot, nervously licking his lips as he darted glances around to see what danger Ray sensed.

For Ray's part, he was extremely thankful for all his caution, and the other troops taking it seriously, because just after he'd hissed his order, a deep metallic scraping could be heard from the ship. Ray shuffled his feet and stared intently, his eyes by now making out a rectangular door opening on the side of the ship.

* * *

Author Notes:

Welcome to my crossover fic! A word about the ship crash-landing. In the TV series nobody mentions the landing killing anyone; initial scenes from the pilot show a relatively deserted area. The main change I've made (aside from rather arbitrarily picking the crash site to be "east" of town) is to envision a kind of dead-stick airplane landing rather than a nose-dive into the ground.

I want to thank my very helpful betas and idea-bouncer-offers: For _Revolution_, **IronAmerica**! For _Star-Crossed_, **justvisiting80**! I also want to thank my horse expert, **Ayala Atreides** here on ff.n :)


	3. Chapter 3

**For This Alliance May So Happy Prove  
**Chapter 3

Disclaimer: This work of fan-fiction is not intended for personal profit. All characters utilized herein which are not creations of myself belong to The CW or to NBC.

* * *

Nox and the bridge crew had quickly realized that just as the ship's electricity itself had failed, so too did any independent battery-powered device. He hefted the useless flashlight he knew by touch, and for a moment wanted to throw it somewhere. _I am the _Iksen, he reminded himself. _I must behave appropriately in front of my people._ He temporized by dropping the useless device and nudging it against the wall of the corridor.

The corridor they were in lined the ship's inner wall, with the only available light trickling in through the ship's windows. Nox remembered the nearby emergency-aid box mounted by the bulkhead just aft of the bridge. He shouldered his way over, crouched down, and mostly by touch, managed to locate the catch for the cabinet. He swung it open and his hand touched a bottle.

_Of course! Water!_

Nox grabbed it and jubilantly jumped to his feet, holding the bottle up to the window so he could see the _Kwandon_ text, which _did_ say the bottle was water (and not disinfectant for cuts). He uncapped the bottle, poured a little into his hand and rubbed his face. Blue light suffused the area as his face lit up, and the bridge crew cheered!

"Let's do another check while we have time. Does anyone need to use the emergency supplies for anything?" Nox asked as he carefully recapped the bottle. He knew all the bridge crew were qualified for basic medical assistance, but the near-darkness of the bridge would have made it impossible. Now, though, with light, the bridge crew could occupy themselves for a few moments carefully checking each other over for injuries under soft blue light that suffused the area from each Atrian.

After the shuffling and moving ceased, Nox urged, "Let's be careful about the water! We can't count on any spares being available. We need to get to the Common Hall and find people along the way. We'll try to get as many of the pods as we can in the crew and passenger quarters of the ship, but I will need some runners to scout ahead of us to the level below and gather people. There's over seven hundred of us to move to the Hall, all right?"

Buoyed at being able to stop, check up on each other and most of all, having _some _source of light, the bridge crew began fanning out along the hallways. Two able-bodied bridge crew members found another bottle of water in an intact emergency provisions cabinet at another bulkhead further aft. As soon as they had it, they shouted that they would be taking the emergency ladder below. Nox bellowed back, "Be careful and safe! Remember, to the Common Hall!"

The remainder of the group made their way from pod to pod, knocking on doors as they did so. Every so often, one or two people would rub their faces with water, illuminating the area and serving as beacons to keep the motley crowd now forming along the halls from becoming lost.

Sabik, the science officer, limped slightly behind Nox. He said, "Did you know even the mag-locks no longer work? The only fail-safes now working are the mechanical override-locks."

"_What?_" blurted Nox. He turned, trying to make out the other man's face.

"It's true. When you were gathering up some of the crew near the bow, the operations officer was helping me get out into the hallway back by the bridge bulkhead. The pad didn't work at all, and he panicked for a second until I said to try the manual release anyway."

Nox remembered now the circular handles on the inside of every door in the ship; barely-noticed hand-operated locks which could be used in emergencies. The ops officer must have been able to turn the release before he'd returned with the other officers and out of habit, Nox hadn't thought to question why the doors still worked.

"What you said – 'nanites'? Could they really be _this _effective? Saturating the ship so thoroughly? So soon?" Nox frowned.

In the semi-darkness, Nox could just make out the helpless look on the other man's face. "I wish I could tell you more. But obviously, we have a ventilation system on the ship, and insofar as the ship's construction is concerned we have very minor leak-points at the airlocks where some air could escape. It's not fatal of course, and regeneration of our atmosphere can be done any number of ways. But if air can get out, then air can get _in_, and once in our ship and in the ventilation systems – the end, sir."

Nox grunted. He looked up, and as the group passed by another bulkhead (with someone making sure to check for the emergency supplies) he noted the section number. His hearts raced. He and his family lived in this section!

He bellowed, "Maia's in there! Let me through!"

Everybody understood what their _Iksen_ meant, and parted before him along the corridor as he raced to the door to his pod. He banged against it several times and bellowed again. "Maia! Can you hear me through the door?!"

When nobody answered, he grabbed the manual override and strained against it. Two crew members leapt forward to help, and their combined strength was able to turn the handle. The locks creaked and protested all the while, which filled Nox with a sense of foreboding. If there were any structural damage to the ship, the frame could be twisted just enough to keep the manual locks from disengaging smoothly at points along the ship where the twisting was most pronounced. People could be trapped in their rooms!

They shoved against the door, rattling it against the frame and dislodging it in doing so. Relief surged through Nox as it swung open, and he barked, "Water!"

The blue glow from his face showed an unconscious Maia and Nox's daughter, Sefi. The little girl's eyes were fluttering open, and she moved her head to see Nox better. They were slumped against the far wall, and as he rushed to his wife and child, he could see nasty bruises on their foreheads, undoubtedly from the ship's collision throwing them about the room.

But where was—?

Nox ruthlessly clamped down on the fear threatening to rise within him. _Focus_, he thought. _I have my wife and my daughter and they are alive._

"Father!" His daughter's weak voice filled him with relief as he carefully reached out for her. Sefi was at least able to talk; maybe she hadn't had a terrible head injury and the bruise didn't indicate a concussion.

"Sefi, do you feel any pain? Do you think you can move?"

Carefully, cautiously, she tested that her hands and feet could move, then shakily rose. Nox offered her a small drink of the water, then turned his attention to Maia and carefully checked her for any broken bones; none seemed obviously broken. At that small piece of good news, Nox let out a gasp, realizing belatedly he'd been holding his breath the entire time. He gently clasped her hand. "Maia? Wake up! Please!"

Her hand reflexively gripped his, and Maia's eyes slowly opened. She groaned and looked around. "Omon? Sefi?" she muttered.

"I'm here, Mom!" Sefi leaned down and reached for her mother's free hand, but she became agitated, gripping Nox's arm.

He could see the fear and panic in her eyes. "Where's Omon?! Where's our son?!"

"Shh. Calm down, Maia. We'll find him, but we need to get you up, all right?" said Nox, trying to keep his voice low and even.

Maia's expression tightened into grim determination as her husband and daughter helped her get to her feet. Slowly, haltingly, they moved into the corridor (and just in time too, for Nox's luminescent markings had begun to fade), and they joined the now long snaking trail of people making their way to the Common Hall.

/\/\/\/\

Bad news greeted Nox as the chief engineer Lenka and her crew joined him just outside the wide doors to the Common Hall. They smelled faintly of oil and coolant, and from someone else's luminescent markings, he could see a small smear of black along her chin.

"_Iksen_! The engine coolant loop is leaking; we were able to evacuate in time and manually close off the engineering section, but I'm worried that the fumes could make their way through the ventilation shafts," she said, frowning as she did so.

"How long do we have?"

"The leak's comparatively slow, but even with that and the fumes being lighter than air, I wouldn't give more than one shift cycle. Maybe two."

"All right. For now, help me get the doors open and everybody into the Common Hall, please," Nox commanded.

After sliding the ponderous doors into their recesses, Nox quickly gestured at the _Hwatab_ elders to go in first with him. "We need to find a table. Did anyone get the flame pots and oils?"

"Yes," replied the elder from the Iwabas tribe.

The Hall was normally kept wide open, and tables were conveniently stacked in one corner, with chairs in the opposite corner, so the only major danger was someone accidentally tripping in the murky semi-darkness of the Hall. Some light crept in from the high narrow windows near the ceiling, and the occasional luminescence bobbing around as someone moved through the crowd helped, too.

Meanwhile, Nox and the _Hwatab_ elders grabbed one of the tables and shoved it against a wall of the Common Hall, ignoring the anxious chatter that swelled in volume as people slowly shuffled into the cavernous room. Luckily, the containers of ceremonial oils for the summoning of Jesytur were undamaged, and Nox and the four elders began setting up the three flame pots, which were normally used only when an Atrian died. Once the pots on the table were lit and the light from the flames began suffusing the Hall, the confused babbling died down. Nox yelled, "Your attention! Your attention, please!"

He would _not_ let himself get distracted with the gnawing in his stomach. Omon _had_ to be safe in an out-of-the-way maintenance closet in the ship; there were just only so many places he could be, and now that almost all the ship's population was in one place and accounted for, they could start a comprehensive search and have everybody found before daybreak – although, he admitted to himself, he had no idea what this planet's rotational period was. The science officer, Sabik, would know.

But everybody's eyes were now on him. His voice didn't waver as he spoke. "The immediate problem we have is that Lenka, the engineer, has informed me that the ship's engine coolant is slowly leaking and evaporating in the engineering section. This ship may not be safe for us and we may need to evacuate while it is still night-time on this part of the planet.

Nox squared his shoulders. "Now, how many of us are there? Is anyone seriously hurt?"

The ship's doctor, Lixan, pressed forward through the crowd and stood beside Nox. He said, "By what luck I have no idea, but the worst we've had is a broken leg and while it looks like we've had some concussions as well, nobody's dead, as far as I can tell. But we've been checking names against the only hard copy of the ship's manifest. There's twenty people missing."

The room exploded in alarmed shouts. _More_ people than just his son?! Nox nearly swore out loud. Instead, he slammed the table, his jaw muscles working as he forced himself to _think_. The roaring in his ears seemed to get louder as his hearts beat a little faster.

After a moment, Nox took a deep breath, willing calm upon himself. He looked up and bellowed, managing to just be overheard. "Lenka!"

The lean engineer, who'd been in urgent conversation with her assistants, looked up and slipped past people to the semicircular space in front of Nox. "Yes, _Iksen_?"

"You know the ship best. Organize a search party and _find those people!_" Nox ordered. "My son is one of them!"

She nodded, went back to her assistants, and was already picking people from the rear of the crowd to join her. Meanwhile, Nox continued. "I also need a small search party to accompany me out of the emergency airlock of this room. We have to scout the immediate area to see if it is safe to evacuate at night. Kastor—" He looked up and saw the man in the nearby crowd.

"Good. I need four more volunteers."

After the search party was duly formed, Nox looked at Sabik. "What do you think about the locks?"

"Lenka would know better, but if I recall our emergency protocols, airlocks fail to an open condition in the event of total power loss. The idea being that we would at that point be abandoning ship by any means possible, so normally the interlocks that keep you from having both doors open at the same time should be defeated." Sabik took a sharp breath and leaned against the wall. Lixan, spotting this, ran up and steadied the man. As he touched Sabik's side, the science officer winced. "What the—? You've probably got a cracked rib!" To Nox, he barked, "I'll handle things here. You find out what's outside."

Nox nodded, but glanced at Sabik first. To the search party members, he said, "Help me get the inner lock open."

Again, as with his pod's door, Nox heard the grinding of the locks being withdrawn as they took turns rotating the door's manual release. Kastor and another man were at the release handle when the locks finally retracted with a loud clunk, and Nox, to his surprise, had been clenching his fists for – well, he didn't know how long.

They pulled, slowly swinging the ponderous inner lock door open, enough to let the six people through; one of them brought a flame pot into the airlock chamber to provide some light. Once again, they laboriously turned the manual release handle, this time set in the wall rather than in the door. This was because the outer airlock door slid into a recess in the ship, to make it easier to go in or out. The locks retracted smoothly, but as the team began pushing at the door to slide it, Nox could hear the unwelcome grinding and screeching before the protesting door finally retracted fully.

He looked out—

And saw a lamp on the ground shining next to a being who looked like an Atrian.

"_Knoswalan,_" whispered Nox.

* * *

Author Notes:

I want to thank my very helpful betas and idea-bouncer-offers: For _Revolution_, **IronAmerica**! For _Star-Crossed_, **justvisiting80** and **Sibuna'sDivergent**!

(_Derivation of Nox's Sondiv expostulation_: Peterson (the designer of the language) tells us that "seaweed" is "knos". "flood" is the literal rendition of "nwalan". I combined the two words to create "seaweed-flood". Atrians, being a more aquatic species generally than humans are, probably conceptualize their more mild epithets in such terms, and so it probably constitutes something in between an actual swear-word like "shit" and an expostulation of shock, like "Jesus!" or "The hell?")


	4. Chapter 4

**For This Alliance May So Happy Prove  
**Chapter 4

Disclaimer: This work of fan-fiction is not intended for personal profit. All characters utilized herein which are not creations of myself belong to The CW or to NBC.

* * *

"_Attention all passengers and crew!"_

The Captain's voice reverberated through the ship, startling Omon as he rushed to the classroom's windows. Was the blue-tinged planet below them _the one_? The one everybody'd been anxiously chattering about for several shifts now?

"_For those of you who are near a window, you can see the planet that we are currently orbiting. We will soon leave orbit and begin entering the atmosphere. While we plan to have a very steady and gentle landing sequence so you can watch as we land, please be careful and mindful of emergency strap-in procedures if we experience any problems."_

Cheers went through the classroom, and their teacher, Iveta, was smiling even though she was trying to quiet down the children so they could hear the rest of the announcement.

"_We are leaving orbit in ten – nine – eight…"_

Omon felt the tiniest of shudders through the deck plates as the ship underwent the smallest of course corrections to begin atmospheric entry. He pointed, stabbing the glass with his finger. "Look! The planet's getting bigger already!"

It was true. Slowly, but surely, the ship tilted down – the planet's gravity pulling their ship ever more swiftly downwards to their final destination.

/\/\/\/\

Omon had ducked into the bathroom and crouched into a small ball when the first tremors had hit the ship; just a little while before, he and the other children in their classroom had been raptly watching through the windows as their ship made a stately descent through the planet's atmosphere. Only the slightest keening whine of air against the ship gave any indication of the challenge facing the ship's bridge crew as they controlled the descent to the chosen landing spot.

But even during a ship's landing, one occasionally needs to deal with bodily functions, and Omon had gone to the facilities down the corridor from the classroom. But just as he exited, the lights flickered alarmingly and the ship began shaking, which prompted his immediate dash for the far corner near the sinks. Not long after, the lights had completely died; even the emergency lighting didn't work.

As best as he could judge years later, the entire terrifying experience had probably lasted no more than half an Earth hour from the moment the ship began shaking, but with the hard floor and wall against his back and side, the ship ominously creaking and groaning, which culminated in terror rattling his teeth as much as the shuddering impact against the ground – it all seemed as if it would never end!

But eventually, the loud roaring shuddering finally stopped. A pipe had broken somewhere; Omon could hear water spraying from one of the sinks. He hesitantly rose to his feet and got a faceful of water for his trouble. In trying to dodge the spray, he ended up soaked from head to toe. From the glow of his luminescent markings, he could see that the bathroom door was ajar, and the frame it was supposed to fit into was distorted just enough that it hadn't shut properly while it was banging back and forth during the landing.

He didn't waste time considering his run of good luck; he swallowed hard as he realized he was aboard an oppressively dark ship and he wanted his father. He raced down the dark corridor, heedless of the fact that he was heading exactly in the opposite direction of the Common Hall.

/\/\/\/\

Ray noticed a flickering light shining through the door of the ship as it slid back, and he took one look at the shapes he could make out; they looked very _human_.

"Shit," he breathed.

Should he aim his gun? Did whoever was on the ship have electricity? Even if not, did they have projectile guns like his own?

He barked, "Whoever you are – if you can understand me – we will not fire on you if you do not attack us! Exit that ship slowly and no sudden moves!"

/\/\/\/\

Nox stood dumbstruck, listening to the strange being's words. They were in absolutely no language he understood! Not even a backwoods Sondiv dialect sounded anything like what he'd just heard. He looked to his left and right, and the tightening in his stomach only intensified as he recognized worry and fear on his fellow Atrians' faces, the flickering light behind them only adding to the uncomfortable looming sense of danger.

He bellowed back, "We are refugees from a faraway planet! We mean you no harm!"

The air echoed with the Sondiv words, then stilled.

/\/\/\/\

All the patrollers standing in the abandoned industrial park went stiff with shock at the completely unfamiliar words.

"Jesus almighty _Christ_," blurted Jerry. "Did you hear that, Ray? That's nothin' like anything I've ever heard before. I don't even think that's an African language – you know, the kind with the funny clicks?"

Ray growled, "Whatever it is they _do_ speak, we can't understand them and they can't understand us. Do we trust them or not?!"

He shifted his grip on his gun, trying to figure out what to do next.

/\/\/\/\

All Omon wanted was to find his father, and he was feeling rising panic as he threaded his way along the dark corridors. He stumbled ahead, his hands touching the walls to his left or right with the only light thrown by the barest flicker when a tear occasionally fell from his eyes. After what seemed like an eternity of searching and not finding any Atrians who could tell him where his father was (it would transpire later for Omon that he had the unlucky fortune to be moving through the supplies section, which had been vacated during the landing sequence as all the supply and inventory crew had moved up a level to watch from one of the large lounge rooms), he rounded a corner—

And he could see! There was light! Dim light, true, but he had managed to reach one of the corridors that ran alongside the inner hull, and he could just see outside by the faint light reflected by this planet's moon (he knew about moons, of course; he'd been taught about the Atrian solar system just a while ago) when he mashed his face against a window to see how high up he was. He figured if he just went down one more level, he could get out and get to the ground. At least, to his way of thinking, he would find his father that way. The ship had never before felt so scary and unsafe, and he didn't like that feeling.

He put his hand against the opposite wall, feeling for the chute that contained the emergency ladders you could use to get from deck to deck. Luckily, just before one of the bulkheads, his hand felt the circular cage that kept people from accidentally falling in; after swinging it aside, he nimbly descended to the next level down, and was greeted with a breeze through a long rectangular window, carrying the unfamiliar scents of the planet he was on. He didn't know how the window had shattered, but he could just see the glinting shards on the floor at his feet. He stepped gingerly to the shoulder-high windowsill, and pulled himself up, shimmying himself over, and after a moment of letting his feet hang freely, he let go.

His feet hit the hard pavement which was partly overgrown with an alien grass, jarring him as he stumbled and rolled. He looked up at the ship looming over him, and a sudden wave of vertigo made his head swim. He shook his head and deliberately looking to his left and right and not _up_, he picked the way to the left as it seemed like the trees (well, they _looked_ a bit like the trees he'd seen in pictures and holograms of plant life on Atria) were a bit thicker that way.

As with his memory of the landing, he would thank whatever fates, years later, that he hadn't blundered into the bayous beyond Edendale.

But at the time, he just wanted to be safe, and the ship did not feel _safe_. He began walking resolutely along the long axis of the ship, rounded the stern, went past the enormous nozzle-blasts and peeked out. He could make out Atrian-looking shapes in the semi-darkness and somehow he _knew_ it would be dangerous to get near one of them. He kept to the shadows of the bushes and trees as he tried to creep behind the group of not-Atrians.

/\/\/\/\

Ray Whitehill would later wonder at how many ways the extraterrestrial contact he was part of could have gone wrong.

As it was, it was a near thing.

Ray decided to go with caution, and slowly lowered his gun to the ground, his eyes never leaving the opening of the ship. He stood back up, gripping the handle of the Coleman lamp as he held it up. His heart hammered in his chest as he warily took a step forward. He thought he could see the tall man in front stiffen just a bit, but he made no move that looked like a gun was going to be pointed at Ray.

Another slow step.

Breathe.

Yet another step.

Let out the breath he'd been holding.

One mo—_BANG!_

Ray's training kicked in and he threw himself to the ground, looking around him as best as he could from his prone position. "What the _hell_ was that?!" he roared. The intact lamp nearly tilted over, its normally steady light sputtering as he grabbed it.

Out the corner of his eye, he could see the vaguely human shapes at the doorway press themselves against the door, making as though to slide it back across the opening and hunker down inside their ship. Meanwhile, most of his patrollers had raised their guns and pointed them at the ship, while the ones at the extremes of the line he'd formed up pointed theirs in various directions around them. He bellowed, "Hold fire! Hold your fire!"

He caught one of the men at the end hesitantly aiming his gun at a copse of bushes about a hundred feet, maybe two hundred feet, away and off to the side. Ray pursed his lips and slowly got back up, shouting "Guns down!" as he did so. He picked up the lamp again, and with deliberate steps paced over to the offending shooter at the far end at the right. "Brad? Brad, is it? What d'you think you're shooting at?! There's nobody there."

The heavy-set man was wiping sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. "God_damn_, Ray! I thought I saw somethin' moving over there! I was just so jumpy, all right?"

Ray forced himself not to explode. Everybody was keyed up, and Brad would probably swear for the rest of his days that he honestly saw something lurking in the bushes and trees when he fired. "All right. Make yourself useful and go back to Scott at the truck and go get the Mayor. And for God's sake don't shoot that damn gun off on the way back, huh?"

Brad cast his eyes down and with a sheepish look on his face, left the group. _Now_, Ray thought, _I hope I didn't screw up whatever this First Contact is!_

* * *

Author Notes:

I want to thank my very helpful betas and idea-bouncer-offers: For _Revolution_, **IronAmerica**! For _Star-Crossed_, **justvisiting80** and **Sibuna'sDivergent**!


End file.
